March 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-England Chronicle (March 14, 1776).

“A few copies of the valuable pamphlet, intitled, COMMON SENSE, to be sold by the Printer hereof.”

Just three days before the British evacuated Boston, ending the siege that began nearly a year earlier following the battles at Lexington and Concord, the first advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense appeared in the New-England Chronicle.  Samuel Hall published that newspaper, according to the masthead, “at his Printing-Office in Stoughton-Hall, HARVARD-COLLEGE,” in Cambridge.  Most of the newspapers published in Boston before the fighting commenced ceased or suspended publication or relocated beyond the city.  Amid such disruption, Hall moved the Essex Gazette, formerly published in Salem, to Cambridge and renamed it the New-England Chronicle.  During the first year of the Revolutionary War, it served the towns outside of Boston and the American encampment where General George Washington oversaw the siege.

That first advertisement for Paine’s influential political pamphlet in the New-England Chronicle contained little fanfare.  Unlike the advertisements that ran in most other newspapers, it did not provide an overview by listing the several sections within the pamphlet.  Instead, two brief lines advised, “A few copies of that valuable pamphlet, intitled COMMON SENSE, to be sold by the Printer hereof.”  Perhaps Hall felt that Common Sense did not need much introduction, especially if prospective customers had already heard about it and discussed the radical ideas that Paine espoused.  After all, Robert Bell published the first edition in Philadelphia two months earlier.  That was plenty of time for word to spread to Cambridge.  In addition, the pamphlet was so popular that Bell quickly took a second (unauthorized) edition to press, Paine worked with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford to publish a new edition in Philadelphia, and printers in several towns in New York and New England published, advertised, and sold local editions.  Which edition did Hall have on hand to sell at his printing office?  He may have acquired copies of the edition jointly published by Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette in New London, and Judah P. Spooner, a printer in Norwich, or the edition published by John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette.  Alternately, he may have received copies of other editions sent to him from as far away as New York or Philadelphia … or perhaps even a local edition published in Salem by Ezekiel Russell not previously advertised in any newspaper.  Even if readers of the New-England Chronicle already knew about the ideas that Paine presented in Common Sense, few had likely read the pamphlet for themselves.  Hall provided an opportunity for them to do so, aiding in the dissemination of the pamphlet in the months before the Continental Congress declared independence.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 14, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (March 14, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (March 14, 1776).

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New-York Journal (March 14, 1776).

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New-York Journal (March 14, 1776).

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New-York Journal (March 14, 1776).

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New York Packet (March 14, 1776).

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New York Packet (March 14, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 14, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-England Chronicle (March 14, 1776).

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New-York Journal (March 14, 1776).

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New-York Journal (March 14, 1776).

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New York Packet (March 14, 1776).

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New York Packet (March 14, 1776).

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New York Packet (March 14, 1776).

March 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago tiday?

Connecticut Journal (March 13, 1776).

“That much esteemed Pamphlet, intitled, COMMON SENSE.”

Two months after Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in Philadelphia, printers in other cities and towns in New York and New England published local editions that increased the circulation of the popular political pamphlet.  Advertisements for Common Sense proliferated as those printers marketed their editions and other printers and booksellers acquired copies that they sold in their communities.  On March 13, 1776, an advertisement for Common Sense appeared in the Connecticut Journal, published in New Haven, for the first time.

“Just published & to be sold by the Printers hereof,” Thomas Green and Samuel Green announced, “That much esteemed Pamphlet, intitled, COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED To the INHABITANTS of AMERICA.”  The Greens, however, had not published their own local edition.  As was the case with so many other advertisements for books and pamphlets, eighteenth-century readers knew to separate the phrases “Just published” and “sold by the Printers hereof.”  The latter did not mean that the printers had published the pamphlet themselves; instead, it meant that the pamphlet was “now available” rather than “forthcoming” or “in the press.”

The Greens stocked an edition that included “an APPENDIX to Common Sense, and an Address to the Representatives of the People called Quakers.”  Paine included that additional material in his approved new edition published by William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, after he parted ways with Bell.  It did not take long for Bell to pirate those items and incorporate them into a supplementary pamphlet of essays he marketed as related to Common Sense.  On the same day that the Greens first advertised Common Sense in the Connecticut Journal, the Bradfords once again cautioned the public that the “Pamphlet advertised by Robert Bell, entitled Additions to Common Sense … consists of pieces taken out of the News-papers, and not written by the author of Common Sense.”  That the Greens did not mention any additional material except the “APPENDIX, and an Address to the Representatives of the People called QUAKERS” suggests that they stocked copies published by the Bradfords rather than by Bell.  The advertisement does not definitively demonstrate that was the case, but it does show that more and more printers made some version of the political pamphlet available to readers.  The Greens simultaneously advertised “EXTRACTS from the VOTES and PROCEEDINGS of the American CONTINENTAL CONGRESS,” supplying customers with other products to keep informed beyond what they read in the newspaper.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 13, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Journal (March 13, 1776).

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Constitutional Gazette (March 13, 1776).

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Maryland Journal (March 13, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (March 13, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (March 13, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 13, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Journal (March 13, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (March 13, 1776).

March 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (March 12, 1776).

“AN ORATION, IN MEMORY OF GENERAL MONTGOMERY.”

The March 12, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette carried an advertisement for “AN ORATION, IN MEMORY OF GENERAL MONGTOMERY: And of the OFFICERS and SOLDIERS who fell with him before QUEBEC.”  Readers knew well that Major General Richard Montgomery, the commander of the American invasion of Canada, had been killed in action in failed attack on Quebec City on December 31, 1775.  The deaths of Montgomery and Major General Joseph Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, had been the most significant losses during the first year of the Revolutionary War.  After the war, John Trumbull memorialized both patriots in paintings that depicted their sacrifice.

Shortly after Montgomery’s death, the Continental Congress invited William Smith, an Anglican minister and provost of the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania, to preach at a memorial service for Montgomery on February 19, 1776.  The message that he delivered surprised many members of the Continental Congress, angering them with the blatant loyalism he espoused.  As Christopher A. Hunter outlines, Smith “prais[ed] Montgomery’s ‘loyalty to his sovereign.’”  Furthermore, he proclaimed that “the delegated voice of the continent … supports me in praying for a restoration ‘of the former harmony between Great Britain and these Colonies.”[1]  Smith directly quoted the Olive Branch Petition, a final effort to broker peace and a redress of grievances.  When George III refused to even read that missive, it convinced many colonizers that reconciliation was not possible.

In a letter to Abigail Adams, John described the oration as “an insolent Performance” and described what happened after William Livingston, a delegate from New Jersey, suggested that the Continental Congress publish Smith’s memorial to Montgomery.  “A Motion was made to Thank the orator and ask a Copy—But opposed with great Spirit, and Vivacity from every Part of the Room, and at last withdrawn, lest it be should be rejected as it certainly would have been with Indignation.”  Yet an advertisement for the oration appeared in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette and several other newspapers.  “The orator then printed it himself,” Adams continued, “after leaving out or altering some offensive Passages.”  Hunter notes that Smith doubled down on some parts that Adams and others found most troublesome, “adding a preface declaring, ‘whatever claim he may have to the appellation of a good Citizen or Friend to Liberty’ must rest on his efforts to prevent American independence.”[2]

John Dunlap, the printer of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet and Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, printed the “ORATION,” advertised it in his newspapers, and sold it at his printing offices in Philadelphia and Baltimore.  Despite the controversy, printers in New York, Newport, and Norwich published local editions, disseminating even more copies.  Each also published, marketed, and sold their own editions of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, a pamphlet that strongly advocated for declaring independence.  Perhaps they thought that honoring Montgomery and the officers and soldiers killed during the Battle of Quebec outweighed the portions of Smith’s commentary that patriots found so “insolent.”  Perhaps they merely sought to generate revenue by publishing a pamphlet that commemorated Montgomery.  Maybe they simultaneously pursued both courses.  Whatever their inspiration, readers of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette and other newspapers repeatedly saw Montgomery memorialized when they perused the advertisements.  Many likely did not associate that act of veneration with the problematic rhetoric Smith introduced in his “ORATION.”

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[1] Christopher A. Hunter, “William Smith’s Catonian Loyalism, Race, and the Politics of Language,” Early American Literature 52, no. 3 (2017): 531.

[2] Hunter, “William Smith’s Catonian Loyalism,” 531.

March 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).

“A few Copies of a Pamphlet, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE, May be had of the Printers hereof.”

Alexander Robertson, James Robertson, and John Trumbull, the printers of the Norwich Packet, ran out of space for all the content intended for the March 11, 1776, edition of their newspaper.  They inserted a brief notice advising, “Advertisements omitted in this Paper will be in our next.”  They did have just enough space to insert a revised advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense immediately above that notice: “A few Copies of a Pamphlet, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE, May be had of the Printers hereof.”

Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).

The printers first ran a variation of that advertisement on February 26, but that was not the extent of the notice that Common Sense received in that issue.  Nathanel Patten, a bookbinder and stationer, inserted a separate advertisement that provided an overview of the contents by listing the section headings.  That replicated advertisements for Common Sensethat previously appeared in other newspapers.  In addition, the Robertsons and Trumbull published “EXTRACTS from aPamphlet entitled COMMON SENSE; addressed to the INHABITANTS of AMERICA” on the third page.  In making their selection, they passed over the first section of the pamphlet, “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution,” and went directly to the second section, “Of MONARCHY and hereditary succession.”  The printers devoted half a column to the “EXTRACTS” and promised, “[To be continued.]” They were more generous the following week, allowing nearly two columns for “EXTRACTS FROM A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE.”  In the issue that “omitted” advertisements and promised publication “in our next,” the printers designated two columns for further “EXTRACTS.”  They sacrificed valuable advertising revenue as they disseminated a portion of the popular political pamphlet to readers, though they may have recouped some of that lost revenue by enticing readers to purchase the pamphlet.  The Robertsons and Trumbull continued publishing “EXTRACTS” in another two columns on March 18 and just over two columns on March 25.  On April 1, they gave over the entire first page and another two columns on the last page to continuing the “EXTRACTS.”  On April 8, they concluded the extracted portion of Common Sense, once again featuring it on the first page along with nearly two columns on the last page.  They also promised more material related to the pamphlet, “Additions to the above,” in the next issue.  The Robertsons and Trumbull made it possible for colonizers to engage with Common Sense along multiple trajectories. They could purchase the entire pamphlet and read it for themselves, peruse the extracts in the Norwich Packet, and discuss what they read with others who debated the merits of declaring independence.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 11, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston-Gazette (March 11, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 11, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 11, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

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Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).